International Organization
- International Organization / Volume 65 / Issue 02 / April 2011, pp 343-365
- Copyright © The IO Foundation 2011
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0020818311000026 (About DOI), Published online: 14 April 2011
Research Note
The Effect of Repeated Play on Reputation Building: An Experimental Approach
Dustin H. Tingleya1 and Barbara F. Waltera2
a1 Harvard University, Boston. E-mail: dtingley@gov.harvard.edu
a2 Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. E-mail: bfwalter@ucsd.edu
Abstract
What effect does repeated play have on reputation building? The literature on international relations remains divided on whether, when, and how reputation matters in both interstate and intrastate conflict. We examine reputation building through a series of incentivized laboratory experiments. Using comparative statics from a repeated entry-deterrence game, we isolate how incentives for reputation building should change as the number of entrants changes. We find that subjects in our experiments generally build reputations and that those investments pay off, but we also find that some subjects did not react to incentives to build reputation in ways our model had predicted. In order to explain this, we focus on the heterogeneity of preferences and cognitive abilities that may exist in any population. Our research suggests that rational-choice scholars of international relations and those using more psychologically based explanations have more common ground than previously articulated.
Dustin H. Tingley is Assistant Professor of Government at Harvard University, Boston. E-mail: dtingley@gov.harvard.edu
Barbara F. Walter is Professor of Political Science at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. E-mail: bfwalter@ucsd.edu
Footnotes
The authors wish to thank Zoltan Hajnal, Alice Hsiaw, Bob Keohane, Tom Palfrey, and Kris Ramsay for their comments and encouragement, as well as Ernesto Reuben for his assistance with coding in Ztree.
